7 thoughts on “When it Rains….It Pours….Another Family Charged in Diabetes Neglect…WTF?????”

Sick. Evil. Demented. I have a list of other “sentence enhancers” I could use to describe this monster but I have respect for your page. This devil lurks in my state about 2 hours from where I currently live. I prayty the boy lives and is NEVER returned to her. This has inspired me to get the ball rolling to be a foster parent and I’d love nothing more than to be the foster parent to a T1D kid.

I certainly hope that the prosecutor has more than what is reported in that story – some meter readings (or lack thereof) and observations of someone who may have no clue what she was or wasn’t seeing. I certainly hope there’s some justification for the use of words like “withholding” insulin. This is nothing like the prayer-over-medical-treatment example from earlier…at least it doesn’t appear to be. But that may also be a result of crappy newspaper reporting and writing.

This just makes me so angry and heart broken at the same time. What parent could do this to their child. I strongly feel that these parents need to be charged with something more than just neglect. Intentionally not providing any diabetic child with insulin can lead to death as we all know and they should be charged accordingly. Praying for this child.

This mother is 27 years old. She and the child moved into another woman’s house about 10 days before the child became noticeably ill. It appears that the mother hadn’t checked the child’s BG for 3-4 days, according to the BG meters the police found.

I have questions.

How old is the child? For how long has the child been known to be a diabetic? Where is the father? Where are the grandparents? Is the mother mentally competent and able to understand the child’s illness? How has she managed it in the past? What is her income level? I assume that she and the child are impoverished. If that’s true, why? What happened that resulted in the mother and child moving into the other woman’s home? Were they homeless? Was the mother fleeing an abusive relationship? Diabetes is extremely expensive, and especially for poor and low-income people. Did the mother have adequate amounts of test strips? What about insulin? Can she afford as much insulin as the child needs, when they need it? I don’t know what’s available to low-income people in Florida. Was the mother receiving some form of welfare or social assistance? If not, why not? (Perhaps she’d applied but the money hadn’t come through, yet, for example). How was she feeding the child? Has she had to rely on food banks, social assistance or community kitchens, none of which are known to provide an adequate diet for a growing child under the best of circumstances, or a diabetic child?

Answers to these questions are not excuses for the child’s condition, of course. My point is that healthy, competent mothers do not ordinarily withhold treatment for their children. Most mothers will go without food, without clothing, without a lot of basics in order to ensure that their children are provided for.

I am withholding judgment until I learn more. I can think of a lot of reasons why the meter that the police checked didn’t have numbers for four days. Perhaps the mother used two meters? My daughter’s endo commented on how I never checked her at lunch and I shrinked away, only later realizing that the meter at school has those numbers. As for not seeing insulin, a small child would not need more than one vial for the few week period they lived with the woman claiming she never saw insulin. A vial is very small and easy to miss. I am a foster parent and have fostered children with Type 1 (I am also a lawyer), so I know how these stories can get very twisted. I am waiting to hear more and, even then, we may never really learn the full truth.